Breaking Down all There is to Warframe Fortuna

Ever since DE announced Warframe Fortuna last July, the Tennosphere has been buzzing with excitement for the new update. A second open-world expansion similar to the Plains of Eidolon, which released in 2017, Fortuna promised a brand new landscape to explore, new characters to meet, new items to collect, and a sick hoverboard to boot. Now that Fortuna is finally here, let’s break down all there is to do in this perpetual winter wonderland.

How do I access Fortuna?

Just like you can access Cetus on Earth, you can also access Fortuna on Venus. Simply click the Fortuna mission node from Venus’s mission select screen and you’ll be dropped into the neon-lit debt internment colony. From there, you can speak to the NPC Eudico to start the questline that will grant you access to the Orb Vallis, Fortuna’s open-world area. Once you’ve unlocked the Orb Vallis, you’ll be able to access its mission node directly from Venus’s mission select screen so you can immediately start plundering its icy depths.

What Syndicates can I find in Fortuna?

As of this article’s writing, there are two friendly Syndicates in Fortuna for you to get cozy with: Solaris United and the Ventkids. Solaris United is the colony’s main faction and you need Standing with them to access most of Fortuna’s new items, including weapons, cosmetics, and companions. You can accrue Solaris United Standing in a number of ways, the most familiar of which is completing bounties. Simply accept a bounty from Eudico, step out into the Orb Vallis, and complete all your assigned objectives to receive several thousand Standing points with Solaris United, just like you would for completing bounties for Konzu in Cetus. Want to gain Standing through more peaceful means? You can also trade gems and Servofish gathered from the Vallis for Solaris United Standing by speaking with Smokefinger and The Business respectively. Or if you have some money and resources to burn, speak with the smooth-talking cyborg known as Ticker to buy Solaris debt-bonds and trade them for Standing. Finally, Solaris United Standing can also be gained by capturing animals for conservation for The Business.

The Ventkids is a hidden, more peripheral Syndicate that deals almost exclusively in hoverboards known as K-Drives. You can find this Syndicate by interacting with the large, graffiti-covered vent on the second floor above Legs’s shop. This is where you can trade Ventkids Standing for K-Drive parts and mods. Standing for the Ventkids is gained by performing slick K-Drive tricks and completing K-Drive races while boarding around the Vallis.

How are Fortuna bounties different from those offered in Cetus?

In many ways, bounties in Warframe Fortuna are the same as those offered in Cetus: a quest-giver assigns you a series of tasks to complete and rewards you for each one completed successfully. However, there are a number of changes to the system in Fortuna that make it unique and, in some ways, superior to the bounty system in Cetus.

For one, Fortuna bounties can be accepted while exploring the Orb Vallis without having to return to the main Fortuna hub. These bounties can be accepted by approaching Solaris United representatives dotted around the Orb Vallis. Note that some of these representatives only become available after capturing enemy camps, which are commonly found in the Orb Vallis’s named areas.

Secondly, Fortuna bounties provide players with the opportunity to gain extra rewards for completing bonus objectives during each bounty stage. For example, completing an objective within a certain time or preventing a defense target from taking any damage might grant the player an extra item from the bounty’s drop table. This gives players an added incentive to complete bounties quickly and efficiently.

Finally, there are several new objective types to complete in Fortuna bounties. Though some objectives are very similar to the ones we’ve seen from the Plains of Eidolon (i.e., “protect this drone as it trundles helplessly around the map”), there are also some new additions such as collecting a certain amount of credits or infiltrating an enemy base undetected within a certain amount of time. So, while the bounty system in Fortuna is certainly similar to that in the Plains of Eidolon, there have been several alterations (and arguably improvements) that keep it from being a total copy-paste job.

What are the hottest new items?

First of all, let us just say: hoverboards, dude.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about some of Fortuna’s more elusive offerings. There’s currently a lot of buzz over Kitguns, customizable Secondary weapons built from individual components in the same vein as Zaws. In particular, Kitguns created with the Tombfinger chamber are becoming highly sought-after due to their ability to inflict damage and a Radiation status effect on multiple enemies at once.

Other in-demand items include MOA companions, available from Legs. Like Kitguns, MOAs are built piece-by-piece, each component providing different abilities and stats. Though there have been some complaints about subpar MOA AI, the fact that you can literally construct a large top hat with legs that follows you around killing enemies is still a major selling point for the bipedal companions.

And finally, Floofs. Floofs are adorable animal plushies available from The Business in exchange for tags collected from animals out on the Vallis. These plushies can be used to decorate the interior of your Orbiter, with many different varieties for you to collect. Countless Tenno have already been drawn in by the irresistible urge to catch ‘em all.

Fortuna Frolic

Warframe Fortuna is yet another excellent, content-rich update to an already excellent, content-rich game. There’s a frankly ridiculous amount of new activities to do and new items to collect, all against the gorgeous alien backdrop of Venus. If the Plains of Eidolon were DE’s first experimental step into the open-world genre, Fortuna is the next step up in evolution, a second attempt that offers ample improvement on the first. Only time will tell where DE’s ambition and imagination will take players next in the solar system or beyond.